Public Men: A Novel - Hardcover

Drury, Allen

3.08

13 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684807033 ISBN 13: 9780684807034

Publisher: Scribner, 1998

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In a sequel to Toward What Bright Glory?, former student body president Richard Emmett "Willie" Wilson, now a U.S. senator, risks everything in a run for the presidency, while his antiwar activist son prepares to run for Congress, with the help of Willie's old nemesis, Remmy Suratt. 20,000 first printing.

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Review:

Allen Drury's most famous book, Advise and Consent, published in 1960, started him down the road of the political novel, a path he cleaved to until his death in 1998. Drury was unabashedly conservative in his outlook and his books reflect his bias: the arch-villain of his last novel, in fact, is an utterly loathsome liberal with extreme political views and unsavory sexual habits. In a nutshell, Public Men, the final volume of the trilogy that began with Toward What Bright Glory? and continued with What Far Harbor?, follows the lives of a group of men who met in college on the eve of World War II. Now in their late 70s and early 80s, the boys in the band have dwindled from 26 to 15. The main players, however, are Richard Emmet Wilson, a U.S. senator from California, Tim Bates, a political commentator, and Ren� Suratt, a professor. Once fraternity brothers, these three have become mortal political enemies, with Wilson and Bates on the side of Right and Ren� aligned with the powerful (and corrupt) forces of liberal academia and the media.

As the novel moves back and forth between the year 2000 and the 1960s, Drury traces the trajectory of all these lives, including a failed presidential campaign, many personal tragedies and triumphs, and, through it all, the tricky terrain of personal relationships across the ideological divide. Political junkies will appreciate the twists and turns of this Washington insider novel. Readers who require a modicum of literary polish, however, will be disappointed. Drury's talents lie in plotting his intricate tales; his writing is merely serviceable. Describing Wilson and his wife Donna's reaction to their son marrying an African American woman, Drury writes:

When "the kids" as he and Donna thought of them, did finally come over a couple of days later to seek their blessing, Ti-Anna was so tense and Latt so defensive in her behalf that the visit ended in near disaster. He and Donna were not at all surprised when the elopement came, even though its abruptness did embarrass them a little among friends and his Senate colleagues. But they made the best of it, bland in public, trying with moderate and fluctuating success to get everyone in both families on a plane of reasonably cordial acceptance.

Grammatically correct, and it gets the job done, but it's hardly lyrical. Still, if it's Beltway drama you want, count on Drury to deliver. --Alix Wilber

About the Author:

The late Allen Drury was for twenty years a Washington correspondent covering principally the Senate, with occasional assignments to the House, the White House, Pentagon, Supreme Court, and United Nations for the UPI, The Washington Star, and The New York Times. His first novel, Advise and Consent, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

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